The first minute¶
This chapter describes the events until the first minute after the lesson really starts.
Arriving¶
The first thing to pay attention to are the people present.
Participants¶
Your lesson starts the moment you and at least one participant are in the training room. Participants will be curious who you are, observe you or take the initative and interact. You may or may not want to interact with them.
If you are not too busy, sitting down and having a chat is a good idea. You could ask about their background, interests or their names. More importantly, you may want to know how much experience they already have (if you did not survey that before the course) and what operating system/Python editor/C++ compiler they are using.
Sometimes you discover important information that way that the participant would not share in front of the entire group (e.g. why the company really hired you or what kind of project they want to apply their skills to).
In a longer course, participants frequently approach you with homework or debugging questions before the lesson. Or they tell you they need to leave earlier, or they ask whether you will cover topic XYZ. I ask the ones with the homework to come back later and answer the others briefly, usually that it is no problem.
When you need time for yourself, kindly ask your participants to fill up their cups or water bottles and tell them you will start in X minutes.
Organizers¶
If you are meeting your course organizer, greet them and quickly talk through the most relevant points. If they are good at their job, they will ask what you need and get out of the way. If their job is something different or they are not experienced organizers, you may have to ask. If they are old friends, they may want to talk a lot. In the latter case you need to state firmly that you have a lesson to prepare.
Checklist |
|---|
are there any last-minute changes? |
where can you put your stuff? |
are they going to introduce you? |
what is the WIFI code? |
are there computer passwords etc. you need to know? |
do you need to know anything about the technology in the room? |
when are the breaks? |
do they have a feedback form or similar? |
where are the restrooms? |
Creating a pleasant atmosphere¶
There are many things you can to make participants feel comfortable before your lesson starts. Even if you are busy preparing
display the title of the lesson
write your name and email somewhere
display the outline of the lesson
display a link to course material
place course handouts on the table
play music (that is easy to listen to, not too loud)
put candies on the table
Example¶
For some time I was teaching biochemistry to medical practicioners. The topic had a bad reputation. They were (falsely) expecting 10 hours of being bombed with chemical equations. The first thing I did was to write “Biochemistry” on the board, drawing a little red heart above the “i”. I believe this did a lot to take away the anxiety and start a fun day.
Technology¶
Setting up everything you need benefits from good planning. For instance, try not to require a long setup right at the beginning, because you might arrive later than expected or you need to deal with installation problems on the participants machines before doing anything.
Things to check include:
setting up of tables and chairs
placing your materials in reach
projector connection
WIFI
software on participants’ machines
flipcharts, boards and markers that write
lighting
font size
microphones
It is worth to always have a plan B if the first thing you want to do fails. If you are unfamiliar with the setting, it is worth to have two: Plan B if some of the technology is working. Plan C if no technology is working and you find yourself teaching with your bare hands.
Go!¶
When it is time to start, take a central position in the room. Remain silent for a while to catch the attention of your participants, then start. But what to actually say?
It is a good idea to think about your first words, because they will leave a lasting impression. I recommend the following as a safe strategy:
Say hello
Say your name (save your CV for later)
Say the title of the lesson.
After these first words, you can transition into introductions, managing expectations or warming up. The main purpose of your introduction should be to get your participants to conduct an activity as soon as possible.
Here are several ways how you could start a lesson on Python Programming:
Example 1¶
Hello, I am Kristian, your trainer in the course “Introduction to Python”. During the next 5 days, you will learn how to write simple Python programs yourself.
Today we will cover the following topics: …
Example 2¶
Good Morning. My name is Dr. Kristian Rother and I am your Python trainer. My job here is to teach you programming. My job will also be to prepare you for the final exam. Because of that, we will do two things today:
First, write a program.
Second, go through some exam questions.
Example 3¶
Good morning. Yesterday, I got a phonecall from my brother. He told me about a memory leak in his machine learning pipeline. It was in TensorFlow, in Keras, using VGG-16.
Let’s check how you would find out that there is a memory leak. (of course only if that is a real story).
Example 4¶
Hello. Today I would like to start with a question. Who of you has written a Python class before?
Example 5¶
Hello. Our topic today is “functions”. I would like to start right away and have brought an example (displays code on screen). Please talk to the people next to you for a few minutes about what the code on the screen does.
Example 6¶
Hi! Let’s write some Python code. Please open an interactive shell.